Commission on the Protection of Lawyers Report

The Protection of Lawyers’ Commission has followed the developments in the cases that it has been monitoring for the past several years.

It also took interest in new individual and collective cases in which lawyers faced obstacles in the exercise of their profession, or were victims of attacks or murder. These situations concern both lawyers who were specifically targeted, as well as their clients, whose right to defence was compromised.

Collective cases also concern situations in which the independence of bars was attacked by the authorities.

UIA also dealt with cases involving magistrates whose independence was threatened in various ways.

The Commission was particularly involved in the protection of lawyers who defended victims of serious human rights’ violations, especially when the highly political nature of the concerned cases makes the defence lawyer or the victims all the more vulnerable. Consequently, UIA intervened very actively, in particular by organising several missions, with regard to the unfair accusation of Turkish lawyers whose situation has deteriorated substantially.